WATCHING UK television, I have to shake my head. We tend to watch the news at lunchtime and then again in the evening, after Pointless – Ellie is eternally hooked on quizzes and I must admit it does draw me in if the question category is appealing.

I still find myself looking up things I did not know, when they come up on Pointless, which at 72, some might argue thirsting for more knowledge is pointless in itself. Yet as Dylan once sang, a man not busy being born is busy dying.

The first source of amusement is becoming a source of irritation now: Ed Balls on Prime Minister’s Question Time. Televised parliamentary business may enable us to see democracy in action but seriously, what does it do for the image of MPs, who heckle, jeer and generally make complete arses of themselves, as if they were 15-year-olds cheering on their school?

Now Ed Moribund gets up and launches his attack because that is what politics comprise – never admitting the opposition has got something right but always criticising. Invariably, he makes his point to the accompaniment of two nodding dogs, who clearly know they are in the picture-frame, as Ed Balls and Harriet Harman nod in harmony at every point their leader makes.

Then when Cam the Toff replies, they shake their heads and mouth Moribund’s regular claim –“they just don’t get it” – as if suddenly they are privy to some essential fact of government that clearly eluded them during their 13 years.

The other week, when the steady economic recovery plotted by the Coalition, was given yet another endorsement – a recovery which the two Shaking Eds had predicted would never come about, Ed Moribund switched tack and said the man in the street is not any better off. Which of course is quite true: you have to have money in the bank first before you can start paying out – simple economics Ed.

Understandably, after the calamity of recession, the value of wages is going down and, as if to emphasise the point while his leader spoke, Ed Balls raised his hand and then made a downwards motion with a pointed finger, while nodding his head as he looked at the Government front bench.

I was grateful for that. It really brought home the point. The point being -the man is a clown.

Politicians are somewhere low on my perception of the human totem pole, particularly because they can say something today and then the opposite a week later, without seemingly batting an eye or being the slightest bit embarrassed. Ed Balls with his economic utterances perpetrates this tendency more than most, particularly when you remember he was behind the wheel when the financial car crash occurred.

The sad fact is that the electorate votes these people into parliament and then watches them with growing dismay.

I have yet to be convinced about the rich receiving a tax deduction in times of a recession and I am dismayed that in this day and age, Cam The Toff has seen fit to fill his cabinet with fellow Toffs while preaching the fact we are all in this together. It would be better if the electorate at large saw a few people and heard a few accents with which they could identify.

Of course after all those years of lies, financial incompetence and spin from Lionel– sorry Tony – (I get these show business types mixed up) plus Gordon, the electorate did not give the opposition a clear mandate. So clearly the nation is basically socialist and I resign myself to the fact we are going to see a lot more of the two Eds.

This worries me as history shows us that after every Labour government the country has been in a financial state. That is fact, not a partisan statement because frankly we don’t vote. Ellie voted for Lionel back in the 90s and now has apoplexy every time he appears on the screen. Me? I believe that if you give each government enough time they will Ed it up.

Of course there is Nick Clegg, whose appearance on PM Question Time gives the impression he has been dragged there reluctantly and acts like a disinterested schoolboy, as if puzzling over whether to move his knight to Queen-four or not.

Like most old codgers I remember yesterday, when we seemed to have more credible politicians, and bigger leaders, who were up front like Bevin, Bevan, Churchill, Gaitskill, Grimmond and MacMillan. You knew where they stood and you could rely on the fact.

I bet you would never see them ritualistically playing the nodding dog.

However, we all have our behavioural problems but one I do enjoy, comes after Pointless on BBC. Zoe Ball comes on to give us a quick appetiser for – well I forget what. To be frank, I don’t take in what she says because I am too busy watching her feet. While she reads the breathless excitement of the forthcoming programme off the cue card, she is wagging, digging, crunching, twisting and turning her feet.

I watch for it every time and I sympathise with her for that is a nervous habit. Nodding your head while Ed Moribund speaks, is gratuitous nonsense.